


Blessed Are Those Who Hunger

by PositivelyVexed



Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Captivity, Dubiously Consensual Finger Sucking, F/M, Gen, Hand Feeding, Hurt/Comfort, Light Sadism, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Starvation, hunger, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 15:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,844
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18702202
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PositivelyVexed/pseuds/PositivelyVexed
Summary: or, Five Times the Van Der Linde Gang Fed Kieran Duffy When They Were Supposed to be Starving Him (And One Time Kieran Just Fed Himself)





	Blessed Are Those Who Hunger

Charles shifted his rifle in his grasp. His hand would heal soon, he reminded himself. He could make himself useful in some other way. Any other way. His satchel shifted at his side with him, and he felt the weight of the can of salted offal through the leather. Arthur had tossed it to him after they’d gotten back from hunting together, jokingly telling him to force-feed it to the O'Driscoll if he got too uppity. Much as Arthur hated the stuff, Charles appreciated the gift on another long shift, low on food as they were. He’d eaten far worse.

"Please, mister, just a bite of food."

This wasn’t what Charles had thought he was getting into when he chose to ride with the Van Der Linde gang.

Charles was a patient man, and he’d happily sat for hours with nothing to occupy his thoughts but the pattern of birds on the wind, or the movement of deer across landscape. He’d always taken the view that being quiet and still gave a man time to think, to see the true shape of things. But this….

 “Please help me. You’re a kind man, I know it,” the O'Driscoll said, from his half bent-over position slumped against the post, wrists twisted behind his back.

 “How do you know that?” Charles asked. He wasn't sure why. He'd been silent the last five shifts he'd guarded the O'Driscoll. Maybe he was just reaching even his own limits of how long he could listen to a man beg while he remained silent.

 “Well, uh,” said the O'Driscoll. Kieran Duffy, that was his name. “You-you ain’t threatened me any,” his voice cracking around the words. “And you give me water on your shifts.”

 Put that way, kindness seemed a pretty meager thing.

“Dutch didn’t say anything either way about not giving you water. Food, though? He was pretty clear on the subject of food.”

The O'Driscoll—Kieran—made a self-pitying noise.

“I already ain’t eaten in four days. I feel like I’m dying.”

“A man can live a lot longer than four days without food.”

Kieran sighed, leaned his head back against the post, looking for a moment like he was about to blink back tears. “Shit, I already know that from experience.”

“So do most of us here.” He gestured with his hand at Colter as a whole—the gang in its entirety.

Kieran looked up at him. Like that was the first thing anyone had said that cracked through that shell of misery he'd been wrapped in since he’d been dragged into the barn.

"Then why do it to me?” he croaked out.

That was the question, wasn't it? Because they needed information, and because Dutch wouldn’t torture a man actively, not the way Colm O'Driscoll would. That was a distinction he knew was important to Dutch. Dutch didn’t want to think of himself as a bully or a torturer. He wanted to think of himself as a liberator, holding out salvation to any wayward souls sensible enough to accept it. And Charles knew Dutch enough to know that he especially wasn’t going to back down in a battle of wills with an O'Driscoll captive. This battle was over before it’d begun, even if the O'Driscoll didn’t seem to have realized it yet.

Charles was no stranger to fighting a losing battle. Especially when he had been the O’Driscoll's age. It might have endeared him to the O'Driscoll a little, or it would have if it hadn’t meant that Charles had to stand out in a freezing barn in a snowstorm.

The O'Driscoll bowed his head so low it was about level with his knees. “Just a scrap of food, mister, just a bite.”

Tough and impassive, a blank wall. No weakness, no vulnerability, no memories. “It’s not in my hands,” he said flatly. “It’s in your hands.”

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know, mister.”

A blank wall. Dutch was sure he knew something, and that was enough. It’d been a mistake to get drawn into conversation. He shifted. “This thing, waiting it out? It’s not going to work. It’s brave, but it’s not going to work.”

Charles knew hunger. He knew it on longer and more intimate terms than he’d known any family or lover or friend. And even when he’d still lived with his mother’s tribe, the only time he’d really felt like he’d had a home, hunger had trailed them all. The more they’d tried to keep their heads up against the rising tide, to stand upright, the more was taken from them. In the year before his mother was killed, he remembered hunting trips that turned up only starving animals. He remembered stripping bark off trees and winters that seemed to last years. It was a hateful thing to put someone through intentionally.

 He shifted, felt that can of offal thump against his thigh. Arthur had only been joking about feeding it to the O'Driscoll. Charles wondered briefly if something of the thought had shown on his face, because Kieran looked right at him. “Anything, mister, I’ll take anything.”

Charles nudged the glass jar with his thigh again. The only other people who’d been to see the O'Driscoll here in the barn were Bill and Arthur and Dutch. At a guess, probably no one had tried anything but threats in the four days they’d been at this. It was likely the O'Driscoll wasn’t going to get anything but threats and starvation from any of them until he broke. But in his experience, with boys as frightened and desperate as the O'Driscoll, there were better ways to get them to talk.

 Another memory, lurking deeper at the back of his brain: his mother’s brothers who went out hunting and never came back. Captured by the US government, accused of heading out in a war party, even with nothing found on them but hunting bows. They were tortured for information. They confessed to everything, signed whatever the government men put in front of them. They’d tell any lie, just to stop the pain. He had his doubts whether even this passive kind of torture would get Dutch the results he wanted. If the boy really didn’t know anything, what might he say eventually, to stop the hunger? What kind of trouble could it lead them into?

At the same time, he didn’t know the O'Driscoll gang like Dutch did, and he was hesitant to try to tell Dutch how to do things. Especially after this gang had been so good to him.

“Do you even know where Colm is?” he asked roughly, before he could think better of it.

The O'Driscoll blinked. Like he hadn’t expected anyone to ask him something as simple as that. Maybe that's why Charles could tell at once that he knew something. It registered on his face quickly, and then vanished like a jackrabbit in the underbrush.

“I-I… no! Course not!”

 “Just tell them,” Charles said.

“I don’t!” He looked hard at the ground, seemed to be trying not to vibrate from nerves. “You don’t understand. If I talked, Colm O'Driscoll would do so much worse than starve me.”

“Dutch can protect you.” 

The O'Driscoll looked skeptical about that. Charles couldn't entirely blame him for that. He sighed. Negotiating wasn’t his skill anyway. He was better at offering a man friendship. Either that, or swift and ruthless violence. This in-between space of guarding and threats and torture that pretended it wasn't torture, this wasn't for him. _Trapped between a rock and a hard place_ , the O'Driscoll had said to Arthur when he'd come in to rattle the boy's cage. Charles knew that feeling well.

Without having a chance to think better of it, he produced the offal from his pocket. “We’ll be moving on in a couple of days, and it won’t do any good for you to pass out from hunger during the move down the mountain. I don’t think you dragging this out is a good idea, but...”

...But he remembered what it was to be hungry.

But he'd sworn he’d never be like those government men, not in any way.

But he knew that feeding an obstinate horse was usually more effective than starving it or beating it. The boy wasn’t a horse, even if he smelled like one, but he hoped a bit of kindness would move him towards talking.

The O'Driscoll looked at the offal with wide, terrified eyes, like it was a trap.

“Or I could not,” Charles said.

“No! I just didn't expect—” the O'Driscoll said, shaking his head. He looked desperately grateful. “I just don't know what to say.”

 “Nothing. You don’t tell  _a soul_ about this. You understand?” He looked at him, face deadly cold and serious. The boy—Kieran—looked at him and swallowed thickly.

“No, sir. I won’t breathe a word to no one.”

He unscrewed the top off the lid, the strong, salty smell burning his nose. Kieran was staring at him anxiously, like he thought it’d be yanked away at any moment. 

He wasn’t sure he was doing the right thing—for the gang, for himself, for Kieran, even. It was the smell of the offal itself that decided him. It sparked a long ago memory of finding a can of the stuff, near the end of his time at home, when the larder had been empty of everything else, when his father had been in a drunken stupor more often than not. It was even the same smell--not a good smell or taste, but when it was the only thing a person had had in days, it smelled heavenly. Like life itself. He could still remember the way his body had responded. A lot like Kieran was responding now, with his glassy eyes widening and focusing on it, like everything else fell away. He lifted the jar up to the boy’s mouth, was careful not to pour too fast. It was thick and pasty, and he was shameless, tongue licking it up as it slid out of the jar. It would have been almost funny, but it struck Charles suddenly as sad. How grateful and desperate he was for such a small thing, and how it wasn’t going to last.

He was done with his meal in less than a minute, and Charles let him lick the rim for a few drops more. It was gone fast, and when he’d finished, the boy seemed to realize it too, and his shoulders bowed as he slumped back against the post, exhausted.

 “Thanks," he said, looking down, "I-I can’t tell you—”

 “Tell me you won’t be an idiot and drag this out until you’re really starving. I’ve seen too many people starve in my time.”

 Kieran wouldn’t meet his eyes. "I was right. You’re a good man, sir.”

"Sometimes, maybe." He put the empty jar back in his satchel and flexed his hand. It was healing up and he’d be back to hunting soon, hunting and fighting, both of which suited him far more than watching a helpless prisoner waste away to nothing. There were things he was comfortable doing to a man, and things he wasn’t. It occurred to him that it would probably be easier for him if he didn’t have that. If he were more like Arthur, devoted heart and soul to the gang. Of course, sometimes he had his doubts about whether it was even easy for Arthur. As easy as he made it look, anyway.

“I won’t be guarding you anymore once we leave Colter, so you’re on your own from now on.” Charles stepped away from him, back to his usual spot. “I’d just talk, if I were you.”

Kieran slumped over. “I told you. I don’t know anything."

Charles sighed. So much for his hope that a little kindness would crack the boy open like an egg. All the same, he couldn't quite bring himself to regret doing it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Pearson had seen a lot of terrible things at sea. No one wanted to hear about it, but it was the truth. That close call, up in Colter, had brought a lot of the worst of it back.

He played three rounds of poker after breakfast, and Uncle actually half-listened to him tell about the sharks this time, or looked like he was going to, when Dutch came by and started heckling them to get back to work. Uncle did no such thing, of course, but Pearson didn't have the option of slacking.

The trouble was, when his mind went in this direction, he needed to get the memories out. But no one would listen. He’d been adrift at sea for fifty days. Watched men go mad and pitch themselves into the sea, to be eaten by sharks. It wasn’t the sort of thing you just bottled up forever. You needed to tell someone, or it'd eat you alive from the inside out.

That night, he sat down by the campfire with a bottle of rum and listened to the singing. He’d been a part of the group for a few years, and he liked them, but he’d never really come back in some ways. Trying to explain that, to them, mostly got him shut up by people who saw the whole thing as a competition. But he wasn’t trying to compete with Uncle or anyone else for the title of worst memory. He was just trying to get the demons out of him for a while. To let someone know what it’d been like.

 Sometimes the memories stayed at bay when he drank, and sometimes they got worse. They got worse tonight.

“Hey, Arthur,” he said, as Arthur drifted into the edge of the campfire and sat down. “How’s it going?”

“Good. Brought back some canned food. Left them on your chopping block.”

“That’s real good, Arthur,” he said, chancing a smile at him. Arthur didn’t seem to much like him, but he was better than anyone in the group at bringing back food for them. He leaned in. Trying not to lean in too hard or too fast, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he was leaning in too hard. “You know, it reminds me, I was once down to just three cans of beans at sea to try to feed twenty men with—”

“Jesus, Pearson, not now,” Arthur said.

“Sure. Sorry.”

He heaved himself up onto his feet and walked over to the wagon to put the cans away. While back there, he helped himself to another bottle of beer. Out here, at his wagon, was where he felt most at home. A safe, solid fortress of wood and food. He’d never seen himself working with a gang of outlaws, but life was funny. It was the closest to feeling like he had a home since the Navy. He really did miss the Navy. He was proud of his time there. But it hadn’t all been good. He finished his beer and helped himself to another one. No one really understood how bad things had been out there, that time they’d been dead in the water. 

 He drank. Said aloud, to the night air, “Fifty days adrift. Fifteen days with no food.”

Something stirred beside him. 

The O'Driscoll boy had raised his head. “W-what?”

He looked at the O'Driscoll boy. They had tied him up right next to his chuckwagon, without asking Pearson, of course. Dutch and the other men had just decided that right next to the kitchen was the obvious place to put the unwashed prisoner. Pearson loved Dutch, but he swore to God, sometimes, that man. Pearson’d ignored him a lot the first few days, though it hadn’t helped, having him within earshot. All the crying, all the pleading for mercy. It made him uncomfortable. He’d gotten into cooking because he liked providing. Liked making something. It wasn’t really in his nature to leave people hungry. He mostly did his best to ignore him.

He took another drink, feeling it hit him, dim his vision a little more, and loosen his tongue.

“We were lost at sea for fifty days. And then the plague broke out. We ran entirely out of food on the thirty-fifth day. It was a bad time. I tried to stay strong, for the others, because I knew they looked up to me, but it was bad. Some of the men’s faces… I still see them when I close my eyes at night.”

“Are you telling me this for a reason, mister?” the O'Driscoll asked.

“I'm saying I know it’s wrong. Back on the water, I thought if I could just get out of here, I’d do everything I could to make sure folks in my care got fed. The whole reason I got into this line of work is so that I could," he was dimly aware he was saying things he shouldn't have, but he was drunk, and a man couldn't be expected to bottle everything up forever. “Folks don’t want to hear it. If I tell them at all, I gotta tell it like it’s a tall tale to hold their interest, and even then, some of them gotta prove they had it worse....”

The O'Driscoll spoke softly, so softly he seemed almost afraid to breath. “If you feed me, I’ll listen.”

Pearson was just drunk enough and lonely enough to think that sounded like a pretty good deal. He looked blearily from the chuckwagon, well-stocked with Arthur's new donations, and the tree with the starving boy on it. They had more than enough to go around these days. He looked back. He'd never gone behind Dutch's back before.

“There was this boy on board, new recruit. Simmons, his name was. He must have weighed fifty pounds when he finally passed. Even the sharks didn’t get much of a meal that day. You--remind me of him sometimes.”

"Uh... thanks."

"I just wish I could have given that boy one last meal to ease his pain."

“You could feed me. The way you couldn’t feed him.”

Pearson looked at him blearily. It was probably just the beer that was making that seem like it made good sense, but he had always liked Simmons. He’d been a good kid, loyal and hardworking. It’d been hard, watching him die. Knowing that even if they had managed to turn up for food, Simmons was too far gone, too far scurvied, to make it. That had been the sea: it was beautiful, but indifferent to you. It could either provide for you or ruin you, and it didn’t care which. The only thing you had that you could count on were your own men and your ship. The gang felt like that too, sometimes, but in a place like Horseshoe Overlook, it seemed worse of a sin to starve a man, when nature provided so much all around them.

He turned back to the wagon, opened the can of sweetcorn up. No one saw anything suspicious in Pearson doing that at all. “We buried more men at sea than came back alive. We tried to weigh the bodies down when we threw them over, the only ones who ate well were the sharks. The plague victims went fast. The rest of us weren’t so luck. Starving is a bad business.”

Pearson thought for a minute he was going to talk back, say that was nothing compared to starving right this second, which, all things considered, Pearson couldn't even blame him for. But the O'Driscoll did as he promised, and just listened, with big eyes.

Pearson offered him the can of sweet corn, and the boy drank it down, barely stopping to chew. Pearson did feel better when he was done. He picked the bottle of beer up, and offered a sip of that to the O'Driscoll as well. The O'Driscoll took a few eager sips, not even carrying that it dripped on his beard. Pearson took the bottle back, finished the rest of the beer in one gulp.

“I came from Iowa, originally. Never so much as seen the sea before I enlisted. I didn’t have to. I already knew it was the life for me, but I had never known terror like that, those fifty days....”

 

 

* * *

 

 

“ _Dishonorably discharged for attempted murder and deviancy_ ,” Micah read out loud, too loud. “ _Deviancy_. Now what do you suppose that means?”

“It means shut the hell up,” Bill snapped. “That’s a private letter.”

“A private letter, lying out in plain sight for everyone to read. Almost like you  _wanted_ it to be read.”

“Keep your voice down,” he snapped, looking around camp. He couldn't see anyone around, but still.

Micah leaned in, nasty smile on his face. “Oh, I got you, I got you. I’ll be quiet as the grave, my friend. But you should watch out. Other folks around here won’t be as _open-minded_  as I am.” 

“It ain’t like that.”

Micah nodded. “Oh sure, friend, sure. I believe you. But will the others?”

Bill reached for the letter and managed to snatch it back out of Micah’s hand. He crumpled it up in his haste to shove it back in one of his pockets, and stomped away. Bill had never known what to make of Micah. He didn’t quite trust the bastard, but what he said sometimes seemed to make sense, and he riled up Morgan, which he usually counted as a plus. And Dutch seemed to trust him. That was good as gold, in Bill’s book. But still, the man was a goddamn bastard.

He took a few angry rotations around the camp. Horseshoe Overlook. New camp, same old bullshit from the other men. He had the familiar urge to tear the letter to pieces, but the urge passed, as it always did. It was the only thing he had left from his Army days, pistol and uniform long-ago pawned out of desperation, and whatever else it was, it was proof he had served in the Army. He had been Lieutenant Bill Williamson once. Folks around here still never showed him that kind of respect, and that was never more clear than in the fact that he was the one who’d been tasked with untying the O'Driscoll once a day and marching him at gunpoint into the bushes by the horses, standing watch over him while the O'Driscoll shielded himself as best as he could and took care of his business.

Bill always found himself staring at those thin shoulders, that trembling back. There was something so damn weak and jumpy about the boy, it practically invited Bill to hit him. Bill’d resisted the urge. Sometimes.

Then Bill’d marched him back to the tree, tied him tight to it. The boy always made some sound of protest as he tightened the ropes around his wrists. At first, the noises annoyed Bill, then he got used to them. Then he came to expect them. Got disappointed when he didn’t hear them. One day, he’d kept pulling till he heard them, only letting off once the O'Driscoll whimpered. Bill’d let out a throaty chuckle at that. It had surprised even him, just how throaty. The O'Driscoll’s eyes had fluttered wide open then, swung towards Bill. Bill hadn’t liked the look of sudden understanding on his face. Like a goddamn O'Driscoll knew the first thing about him. Bill lifted a knife to his neck, just to get the knowing look out of his eyes. Bill let him stew with no break from the tree the next day. After that, the boy’d been pliant when next he was released. Still jumpy, more jumpy than ever, but pliant and obedient. Didn’t give him no trouble at all.

The O'Driscoll still begged all the women (except the Adler lady) for food, and Morgan too, for some funny reason, but he’d given up begging anyone else by that point. The O'Driscoll’d been after Smith a lot, the first few days, must have thought he looked friendly, but he seemed to have given him up for a lost cause when Smith wouldn’t meet his eye or speak to him, or even pass by his godforsaken corner of the camp.

And the O'Driscoll certainly didn’t beg Bill. Not that Bill wanted him to. Not that Bill cared what the O'Driscoll did at all.

But today, after that exchange with Micah, looking around camp, he saw the only one within earshot was the O'Driscoll. He headed over his way. The O'Driscoll raised his head and straightened up with a start, pressed up against the tree like he hoped he might just disappear into it. All he could see through the curtain of greasy hair that fell in his face were wild eyes, darting like a skittish horse.

“O'Driscoll,” Bill said, circling the tree.

“H-hey, mister,” he stammered, just barely getting the words out.

“You listening in on me, O'Driscoll?” he asked. 

“No?” O'Driscoll said. 

“You look like you were listening in.”

“Well, I w-wasn—” he was still spluttering out a denial when Bill closed the distance between them. Got his hand on his shoulder and dug his fingers in like meathooks.

“You gonna spread lies about me?”

The O'Driscoll flinched away, seemingly not knowing what he’d done to bring this upon him. He screwed his eyes shut like that would make any difference. “No, sir! No! And-and it ain’t like anyone’d believe me over you anyway.”

Something in Bill softened for a second. Maybe the brief reminder that whatever else, Bill was a higher man in camp than the O'Driscoll. Leave it to a forked-tongued O'Driscoll to know the way to his heart.

“You think you’re clever, don’t you, O'Driscoll?”

The O'Driscoll made a face, looking like no one had ever honestly accused him of that before in his life. “No, sir.”

Bill dug his fingers deeper into his shoulders, and let go. “I was in the Army. I did my fair share. Just like I do more than my fair share around here,” he said. 

The O'Driscoll nodded desperately. “Y-yeah. Course you do.”

“You better talk soon, O'Driscoll. You don’t, we’re gonna have some real fun with you.”

The O'Driscoll looked like he thought it was safer not to say anything to that. So he was at least that clever. Bill shoved him back against the tree so hard his head rattled. “Quit distracting me.”

He grabbed up his rifle and went on guard duty, grateful to have something simple to focus on. 

Several days later, when Bill was on guard duty again, a little before sundown, Smith and Javier came back to camp with MacGuire, alive and whole. Loud and full of himself as ever.

“Dry those tears, ladies!” the kid hollered as he slid down off the back of Smith’s horse. “Sean MacGuire’s back in your lives!”

A stir rolled through the women of the camp, scoffing but friendlier than anything Bill himself would get if he said something like that. Sean was back from Blackwater. The boy was a smartass, as far as Bill was concerned, but even if he didn’t much like the boy personally, he was one of them. They stuck together.

Dutch greeted Sean with open arms, launching into a speech to the assembled people that’d gathered around Sean. Bill was never good at remembering the contents of Dutch's speeches as much as the way they made Bill feel, the certainty and sense of belonging they filled him with. This time, he was pretty sure Dutch said something about how this proved they were turning themselves around, that they never forgot a member of the family, and that they had freed one of their own from the bonds of captivity, from the tyranny of a country that’d lock a man up in chains.

Bill was probably the only one who noticed the O'Driscoll’s head jerk up a little to stare at Dutch at that, mouth open in dismay.

When Dutch declared the rest of the night a party, Bill was first in line to help himself to a beer, and he helped himself to plenty more throughout the night. He moved restlessly from the campfire to the scout fire to the tables by the chuckwagon, and eventually ended up in an argument with that smartass Uncle. He didn’t really remember what it was about or how it started, but he remembered how it ended, with him pushing a laughing Uncle across the table and yelling, “You don’t know a goddamn thing about the Army.”

Bill stood, and staggered a bit, like he’d risen too fast. An explosion of laughter came from Uncle. “Uh-oh, Williamson _knows_ something about something!”

He swung one half-hearted fist at Uncle, then lurched away from the table, staggering off to the chuckwagon. He got himself another beer, and then stood there, in the shadow of the wagon a long time. He was staring at something on the cutting board—a crust of bread no one had finished at dinner. He stood swaying, then picked it up. Meant to take a bite of it, but took another swig of beer instead. He finished the bottle and dropped it on the ground.

He walked in a weaving line over to the O’Driscoll's dead tree. The O'Driscoll hunched over, half-disappearing into the shadows. If a man hadn’t been looking for him, he might have missed him altogether.

 “What are you getting up to over here, O'Driscoll?”

He raised his head, squinting. “What does it look like?”

“Don’t get smart with me, O'Driscoll.” 

“I ain’t smart, just hungry,” he said, then flinched, like he knew he was asking for it.

Bill meant to punch him, but he was still holding that hunk of bread.

“You think I’d go soft on you, O'Driscoll?” He lurched forward, closed his hand around his throat. He could feel the ODriscoll's pulse fluttering beneath his fingers.

“No—”

Bill’s hand tightened around his throat, then softened, and he moved it to his hair, tugged it until he got one of those protesting moans out of him. The O'Driscoll's eyes widened and he looked away, embarrassed. That seemed to scare the O'Driscoll even more than the hand around his throat had. Bill liked the feel of the heat baking off him. Heat and fear and shame. “You’re ugly as the ass-end of a mule,” Bill murmured.

The O'Driscoll squirmed, looking good and scared. “I-I can’t help the way I look.”

Bill glanced around, like somebody might catch him holding bread in the vicinity of the O'Driscoll. But no one was paying them any mind. Another song had started, and everyone had moved to the campfire to join in on singing. He looked down at the bread, suddenly curious.

“What?” the O'Driscoll whispered. "Why don't you leave me alone?"

Bill pushed the bread into his mouth roughly, and the O'Driscoll let him. The bread had been out for hours, and it was stale, but it was food, and the O'Driscoll nearabouts looked like he was going to squeeze tears through those stubby eyelashes, he was so grateful for it. He swallowed, barely chewing, barely letting it touch his tongue, then opened his mouth slightly. Bill wanted to see that look again, so he tore off another piece of bread, held it up to the O'Driscoll, and waited for him to lean forward, eyes glassy and full of need—he pulled the bread out of reach of the boy’s teeth at the last second, and laughed at him, enjoyed the groan of frustration from the O'Driscoll’s mouth.

He was used to controlling men through blunt strength and violent instruments—guns, explosives, knives, axes. He liked hurting men absolutely, so no one’d ever think Bill was easy to take down, or soft in any way. He’d like to try all that out on the O'Driscoll too. But in the soft haze of too much booze and darkness, there was something to be said for tormenting a man with a piece of stale bread.

 He teased the O'Driscoll a bit longer, and then, just when the O'Driscoll seemed to give up, lose interest in playing and turn his face away, Bill pushed his hand with the piece of beard into his mouth, and the O'Driscoll was eating out of his hand again. He closed his lips around Bill’s fingertips, and Bill was disgusted and delighted in equal measure by the O'Driscoll’s shamelessness as he sucked the crumbs off his fingertips, hot mouth desperate for any last morsel of food. Bill ripped off another piece of bread and pushed his fingers into his mouth. The O'Driscoll swallowed that too. Feeling bolder, feeling more curious, Bill stuck his fingers deeper into his mouth. Something uncomfortable pooled through his stomach as he watched the O'Driscoll grimace, but lick the dried beer off his fingers. Bill pushed his fingers in deeper, cruelly deep. Gagging, the O'Driscoll tried to pull away. It broke the spell, made Bill realize through the fog of alcohol that his fingers were in an O'Driscoll’s mouth.

“Jesus, O'Driscoll. What the hell is wrong with you?” He smacked him in the head and pulled his fingers out of his mouth and wiped them on the O'Driscoll’s once-white shirt.

“I wasn’t—” the O'Driscoll said, jerking his wrists against the ropes. In the heat of the booze and dizziness, Bill thought it was hard to tell if he was trying to get away, or get closer. “You’re the one—”

“Jesus. I heard O'Driscoll were all known for deviancy, but now I’ve seen everything.”

“I ain’t an O'Driscoll!” the O'Driscoll said, his mouth still dry. "Or anything else you just called me."

But Bill lurched away and threw back his head and forced out a laugh. “O'Driscoll, you are touched in the head if you think you can make me betray Dutch, goddammit.” Then he lurched back towards him, grabbed his collar in his fist, pulled him close. “You tell a soul—”

“Christ, I won’t! Can’t you just leave me alone?”

“I’m watching you,” Bill said, feeling like talking without slurring was harder than it should have been.

Bill always felt a bit better after cowing someone into submission, but this didn’t clear his head as it should. He had slipped up, had fed the O'Driscoll—he hadn’t met to, but he had. Looking back on it—without that boy’s pitiful cries under him and his hot breath on his fingertips, Bill couldn’t begin to say why he’d done it. Sometimes the drink affected him. He was rapidly reaching the point in the night where the booze caught up with him. He stalked away to the tent he shared with Lenny and Hosea, but he was so drunk he made it as far as the boxes stacked up against the side of the tent, when he collapsed against them, feeling utter relief as he lowered himself to the ground.

He still had a bit of the bread clutched in his hand, the final piece the O'Driscoll had taken a bite off of, and without thinking, he raised it to his mouth and ate it, tasted the spittle-wetness where the O'Driscoll’s lips had been on it.

It really wasn’t good bread.

And he still had the feel of the O'Driscoll’s mouth on his fingers, still burning, like even wiping his hand off couldn’t wipe the heat of the O'Driscoll's mouth away. But then he was lying down in the dirt, the spins subsiding enough that he could sleep, and he didn't have to think anymore. At least Bill probably wouldn’t remember any of this tomorrow. The O'Driscoll might remember, but who cared about him?

 

 

* * *

 

 

Sean slept until nearly sundown the next day, because fuck it, he was a free man. He stretched, remembered everything that’d happened last night, and felt a big, foolish grin spread across his face. He knew Karen loved him. Always had, that girl was weak in the knees for him. And after last night, it wasn’t only her knees that’d be weak.

It sure beat sitting in a little makeshift jail in Ike Skelding’s camp, that was for damn sure. He swung himself up out of his bedroll. It was day, he could move about, and so he did.

He stumbled to the chuckwagon and helped himself to a heel of bread and a side of greasy mutton, with some of the gravy from the bottom of the stewpot. A go-to for after drinking. He looked around to see who was still around camp.

Most everyone was moving slowly, after last night, trying to hide hangovers or sleeping late, so Sean just took the whole thing in, the entire picture of the camp and everyone in it. The place they had found was prettier than their camp near Blackwater had been. The air was fresher and cooler. They had less stuff—they'd grabbed up what they could in a few wagons and run for their lives. But Sean had never seen anything that looked prettier. He grinned, and leaned back against the chuckwagon table. As he chewed, he heard a soft moaning behind him, from the dead tree by the chuckwagon. 

When Javier and Charles had first accompanied him back to camp, he’d seen the prisoner. “Who the hell is this?” Sean’d asked, walking up to him. “You start taking prisoners for ransom while I was gone?”

“O'Driscoll prisoner. We’ve airing him out, letting him go hungry until he’s ready to talk. The little shit’s been keeping mum for twenty days now,” Dutch said.

“An O'Driscoll? You missed having an Irishman around as much as all that, have you?”

Dutch snorted. “Not hardly. He’s not really Irish, or at least he doesn’t sound it when he talks. Talks all day long too, but never opens his mouth to say anything useful.”

“So nothing like our Sean here,” said Hosea, drily.

“Hey now, is that any way to talk to an old friend, delivered to you from the clutches of death?”

Then Hosea’d taken another jab at him, then Sean hugged him and Hosea’d gripped him hard. Then he had helped himself to a few more drinks, and then he’d found himself standing on top of a old soapbox, addressing the entire camp. Then the party had begun, and he hadn’t thought once about the prisoner again until this moment, standing in the afternoon sun, watching the O'Driscoll’s head dangle between his shoulders as he snored.

Sean decided to go introduce himself. O'Driscoll or not, whether they were starving him or not, there was no sense in doing anything so cruel as denying a fellow his acquaintance.

He strode over, still mopping all the mutton grease up off the tin with his heel of bread. He could see the O'Driscoll a bit more clearly in the full light of day. About Sean’s age, maybe a little older, with that same long scraggly hair and beard that seemed to be the required uniform of the O'Driscoll gang.

“An O'Driscoll right in our very own camp. What an honor.”

“Huh?” The O'Driscoll jerked and looked up. His eyes were confused as he squinted up that the stranger. “Hey. You’re the new one, aren't ya? Please, I’m real hungry.”

Sean would have given the man points for optimism, but he didn’t give O'Driscolls points for anything, on principle. He chuckled. “I’d save your breath if I were you. I'd sooner give an O'Driscoll a bullet in the brain than food.”

The O'Driscoll sighed and let his head fall back between his shoulders. 

“I just came by to make introductions. So, what’s your name, O'Driscoll?” asked Sean. He finished off the bread, chasing the last of the gravy around his plate with it.

 “Kieran—” the boy said, watching the tin intently, voice cracking with misery, “Kieran Duffy.”

“Well now, Kieran Duffy. That’s an Irish name if I ever I heard one. And Dutch tried to tell me you’re no more Irish than Arthur over there.”

“My parents—” Kieran said, lifting his head, looking briefly hopeful at the point of commonality between them. “I was born here—America—but my ma and pa. They were from Ireland.”

“Well, always nice to meet another fella whose family comes from the Old Country,” he clapped the O'Driscoll on the shoulder. “Colm must have thought so too.”

The O'Driscoll flinched away from the touch. Sean had been in his shoes not so very long ago, and he didn't think much of him. He’d fought back against Ike Skelding’s entire private army. Sean didn’t have much patience for people who ended up captive and didn’t at least give their captors hell. It was a matter of basic dignity. But looking him up and down, Sean got the sense dignity and the O'Driscoll weren’t on speaking terms with each.

“You’re Sean, right?” The boy’s voice was creaky and slow. “The one who was captured?”

“Yeah. Captured by a whole army, I was, and look which of us is still standing now.” 

“That’s really something.” The O'Driscoll sounded halfway earnest, then pitched his voice lower. “Listen, I’m real hungry.”

“I bet you are. What do I care?”

“Look, you must know what I’m going through.”

Sean finished licking the stew tin clean, tossed the tin at his feet. “You don’t compare us, all right, O'Driscoll?”

“I just mean, with what you’ve been through—”

He got up in the O'Driscoll’s face, and it didn’t matter if the O'Driscoll was a lot taller, that boy was cowed into looking up at Sean. “You  _don’t compare us_. You and me, we’re nothing alike. If we were, your O'Driscoll boys would be here to rescue you by now. But they’re not coming, are they?”

The O'Driscoll sighed. “Yeah, alright. Good talk.”

He'd sucked all the fun out of things already, and Sean had a million better things to, on his first day back in camp. Sean passed the rest of the day in a state of pleasurable half-drunkenness, telling stories about how hard Ike Skelding’s boys had had to fight to take him and how much hell he’d given them in camp. He ate a lot too. People complained about Pearson’s food here, but food had been real shite in prison. Next to that, the stew was a feast.

Though even Ike Skelding’s men had fed him something. He wasn't sure why he thought that, briefly, but he did. He pushed the thought away violently.

No one had ever accused Sean MacGuire of being prone to reflection. But sometimes he had dreams, at night, real vivid dreams. He'd had them since he was a kid. One night, a few days after getting back to camp, he dreamed about being back in Ireland, about bounty hunters pouring through the streets and grabbing him, even though he hadn’t done anything wrong yet, he was just a kid, but Ike Skelding wouldn’t listen to that, no. He was determined to punish him all the same, when he was too young to fight back or to even know what he’d done wrong. Tied him to a tree and left him there, till he grew old, till he was little more than a skeleton that moved when Skelding told him to move.

After he woke, he laid staring up at the roof of his tent. He didn’t like remembering his past. There had never been enough to eat in those days, at least not for him or anyone he knew. There was more than enough for the rich, some mysterious, little-seen group of people he only caught glimpses of but felt the effects of constantly. He’d hated the rich. Hated the fucking bastards. Not that Sean had ever felt any great solidarity with the poor. Most other poor folks were just damn dumb bastards happy to work for the rich, be their willing stooges. He stood with the folks who fought back and took what they wanted, who rejected the rich men’s games entirely. That’s why he’d loved Dutch, since the beginning.

He would never admit it to a soul, but there’d been times back there, in Ike Skelding’s camp, that he’d been afraid they’d left him behind for good. He was young, and he was kind of a fuck-up on jobs sometimes, too much of a loose canon, and he knew it. He'd been afraid that even if they tried, that they’d be too late and he’d hang. Die like a dog, dead and buried in an unmarked grave. Dead before he’d even had a chance to live.

That day, he kept glancing over at that O'Driscoll on the tree. Goddamn, just watching the pathetic fuck was bringing up memories he didn’t want. It was probably his fault he'd had that dream in the first place.

He should really go over to tell him to go fuck himself. But he got distracted by drinking. The next night, he had that dream again. Didn't dream about Karen or anything he would have actually enjoyed dreaming about. Dreamed he was drying out from the inside out, being starved out by Ike Skelding. Aired out, hanging upside down from a tree. No food or water for days, weeks, until he was nothing but a husk of a man, some dry skin pulled taut over bones.

He couldn't shake the feeling all the next day. The next night, as he crossed camp, he was distracted by the smell of the stew cooking. He grabbed a bowl and helped himself, took a few bites. It made the hungry, empty feeling in his stomach subside. He made the mistake of turning and looking at the O'Driscoll then, and that nauseous feeling returned. He meant to walk away, but Sean didn't run away from anything. He walked forward.

“Hey, O'Driscoll? What do you think of the rich?”

 “Huh?”

“The rich. How do you feel about them?”

“I don’t know. Not good? I’m trying to sleep.”

He laughed. “Hey, O'Driscoll, that's the first worthwhile thing you've said yet. I think that deserves some stew." He spooned some out, held it out to him. “One Irishman to another, and one prisoner to another.”

“What?” The O'Driscoll eyed him like he was joking. Or fixing to trap him.

“What kind of a question is that? Do you want to eat or not?”

“I do. Lord, I do.”

"Alright then. That's better." He held the spoon up to his lips. The O'Driscoll shivered as he put his mouth up to it. Sean gave him a few more spoonfuls before he decided that was enough. The O'Driscoll looked halfway heartbroken as he set the spoon down, but only half as heartbroken as he looked confused.

“What was that for?”

 _Because I've been dreaming about dying the same way you seem to be going, and this seemed like it'd make the dreams stop_ was no kind of answer at all, even in Sean's head. He’d have died sheer embarrassment just saying it. “Because everyone deserves a chance to celebrate me being back in camp,” he said instead.

The O'Driscoll looked at him nervously. “Well, I’ll sure do that, then.”

He ate down the rest of the bowl. Seah felt vaguely amused by it all, by the desperation and gratitude.

“There you go, O'Driscoll. Don’t say I never gave you nothing. Except to all of them, of course,” he nodded around camp. “Don’t say nothing to them." 

He tossed the empty stew tin on the ground, took out his flask and held it up to his own lips, took a big, burning gulp of it. “To surviving.” Felt purged, like whatever’d been lying on his chest had lifted. Like he could feel confident he wasn't going to have any more dreams tonight. Like he'd worked some kind of magic.

The O'Driscoll nodded. “To surviving,” he whispered.

He was looking at Sean like Sean was his new personal savior, a hopeful glimmer in his dumb eyes. It was all a little too much, more than Sean had signed up for, so to set things to rights  he pulled back his fist and punched the O'Driscoll in the face. The O'Driscoll fell forward, legless and gasping, all his weight caught on his wrists for a minute. “What—what was that for?” he asked, scrambling to get his legs underneath him.

Sean flexed and unflexed his hand. ”So you don’t get any ideas about us being friends. This is a one-time thing.”

The O'Driscoll shook his head. “You could have just said that."

Sean laughed. "See you around, O'Driscoll," he said, and walked away, to find Karen and remind her she loved him, to split the rest of the bottle with her under the stars.

 

 

* * *

 

  

It was usually a source of aching disappointment to Mary-Beth, how far real life fell short of novels. Of even the most hackneyed of romance novels. Especially the most hackneyed of romance novels.

Every once in a while, one of the men, usually Uncle, would get in the mood to explain their absurdity to her, like she never would have noticed that rakish gentlemen whose hearts could only be tamed by pure-hearted, impoverished governesses were thin on the ground in real life without a lazy old curmudgeon there to point it all out to her.

They never seemed to grasp that that was the whole point, the distance between how simple things were on the page and how squalid and confusing things were in real life.

As if she needed Uncle, a man who had done less work in the last fifteen years than she’d done by the time she was eight, to tell her about the seediness and squalor of a woman's lot. Or to point out the improbability of the pirate’s daughter falling in love with the dashing young captive brigadier her father had taken hostage. It was all nonsense, and Mary-Beth knew it, and she loved every word of it.

Still, it was a bit funny, to put the book down and see her own life. She supposed it must have sounded romantic in its own way—living with outlaws, men who could be by turns chivalrous and dangerous, absurd and philosophical, but only if you skirted over the realities of the day-to-day of living in a camp with a rough group of men who were mostly—though not uniformly— disinclined to offer any help with chores. And then there was the deeper doubt in her mind these days, the sense that they were literally and figuratively moving backwards—away from the open west, where freedom beckoned, towards the grime and sprawl of the east. Nonetheless, there were elements fit for a book. She only had to look across the camp to their own captive rival gang member to see that. That was another thing that she felt strange about, a stab of wondering if Dutch had really lost his mind once and for all, thinking it was a good idea to take an O'Driscoll prisoner and drag him around with them, first to one hideout and then to the next. They had never done this sort of thing in the old days. They’d had him for three weeks now, and her eyes kept being drawn to the dead tree behind Pearson’s wagon.

It was hard not to think of how well it would have worked as a set-up to a romance novel. A novel she would have read all day without once putting down. The enemy captive, and the rival gang's thief. 

_He wore the black leather coat that was the uniform of the enemy gang, dusty and worn, a dark coat for a gang known only for dark deeds. But underneath—a hint of a white shirt peeked out, shining like a white flag of surrender, like a lover's handkerchief clutched tight riding into battle._

 Mary-Beth laughed at herself. And this was why she wasn’t a writer, not really.

 Still though, the purple prose that sometimes ran in her head, narrating her life to herself and cutting out all the unappealing parts, transforming everyone from themselves to characters fit for a romance novel—kept flitting through her head when her eyes fell on him. _Tied against the tree—beaten but unbowed—he was tall. Taller than most of the men in camp, with long dark hair that framed a pale face...._ She didn't even want to think too hard about how a book might narrate the time he once started crying in gratitude when she’d given him water on a particularly hot day.

She felt bad, thinking about the poor boy so, framing him as a character in a story, comparing him to some fictional ideal. He was just like most men she’d found in the world—ordinary, hungry, desperate. Not particularly handsome or talented or clever. Just suffering in his own unhappy fate at the hands of stronger men.

But he kept drawing her attention back. 

Maybe it was because she’d never really known an O'Driscoll before—she was quite sure if she ever spoke to any of the men about her misplaced fascination, that’s exactly what they would tell her. But something about him didn’t match her image of what an O'Driscoll was like. He seemed panicky and flinching and beaten—understandable, given his current predicament—but he also struck her as innocent. Innocent and kind in some fundamental way that she rarely saw in any gang she’d run with or any of the men she’d known in her life. It was his eyes, maybe.

And then she realized she was in danger of convincing herself she was in one of her romance novels, and could tell by a man’s eyes whether he was kind or not. Like she hadn’t had her share of bad experiences with men who’d looked plenty kind. Like a man tied up and starving would make anything but the saddest and most pitiful eyes at anyone who looked his way.

 But all the same, she couldn’t imagine any of the men in her camp reacting the way the O'Driscoll did to his captivity, with soft desperate pleas to put in a good word for him or have mercy, like a group of outlaws would be moved by that. That interested her. She knew she had a reputation as the soft-hearted one in camp—it wasn’t a reputation she really minded—but it was curiosity, not true soft-heartedness at all, that piqued her interest in Kieran Duffy. How did this boy get to running with the most feared gang in six states, a gang famed for its cruelty even among other gangs, with a personality like that? What role could he possibly have played with them?  

So she began taking more journeys by the tree, carrying buckets of fresh water for Pearson’s washbasin. She’d steal a glance at him as she passed. He usually had his head down, slouched in that half-bent over position that couldn’t be comfortable for him.

Today, she took her time. She worked slowly, doing the dishes and watching him out of the corner of her eye. She caught him raising his head a little and watching her. When she at last finished, she decided to visit the horses behind Kieran. None of them were hers, but all the same, it gave her an excuse to move right past him.

As she passed, he lifted his head.

“Hey, miss,” he breathed. He’d been polite, hopeful, ever since she’d given him water that first time. Then, she had felt almost obligated to, vaguely embarrassed by Karen’s cruelty in teasing him. She’d given him the cup Karen had laughingly refused him, and assured her Karen really was a nice girl. She really was. She was just under a lot of pressure. They all were.

Kieran’d said that if she said so, then he believed her. That had gone through her sharply, how earnestly he said it. Of course a man would say anything, in a situation like that. But he seemed to mean it, and he didn’t seem to be much of a liar. Certainly no one, not even Mary-Beth, believed his claims that he didn’t know anything about Colm O'Driscoll's location. He had believed her about Karen, simply because she'd said it.

“Hello there,” she said. 

“I'm real hungry, miss, can I have some food?” After three weeks of asking, he was either admirably persistent or thick-headed.

“You know I can’t,” she said. “They’re watching me too closely. Everyone expects me to be the one to give in and feed you.”

He looked for a moment like he was about to say something to that, but then thought better of it.

“But you want to?” he said hopefully, voice cracking a little in the middle, like dry straw. She didn’t think he’d ever been handsome, but three weeks of hunger and squalor had left him gaunt-faced and glassy-eyed. Still, there was something in his demeanor that was... nice. Made her want to look at him longer.

She smiled a little, at the hope in his voice. The boy sounded miserable and broken whenever Arthur swung by to prod him, but even with him there’d been that odd hope—the innocent thought that if he just found the right way to beg, the camp’s enforcer might take mercy on him. 

"I like your optimism," she said, sincerely. "And I guess I do want to,” she sighed, looked around. 

“I ain’t ever been called  _optimistic_  before,” he said, breaking the word down into each of its syllables, like saying it was new to him.

“You seem pretty optimistic to me.” She caught Miss Grimshaw out of the corner of her eye stalking over, and though she doubted that Grimshaw really cared that much whether Mary-Beth talked to the camp prisoner or not, but she'd be on the warpath about her chores remaining undone. “I have to go,” she whispered, and slipped away towards the horses, where Grimshaw never went, out of some superstitious fear that just walking amongst them would drag their stink back into camp on her skirts.

“Thank you,” he said suddenly. Desperately. 

“What for?” 

“For being kind,” he whispered, looking embarrassed as soon as he said it.“You talk to me like a person.” Up close, he had a bit of a toady look about him, but there was still something appealing about him. A toad in need of kissing. ( _Oh God,_  she said inwardly.  _Honestly, Mary-Beth._ ) 

 “Well,” she said. “You seem kind too.”

He offered her a shy, hopeful smile that nearabouts wrenched her heart. It made her feel like blushing too, and she hurried away.

_He was handsome, in the roguish way of a man who knows himself to be in enemy territory but remains undaunted, his shoulders squared defiantly, a winsome grin meeting her as his haughty eyes flicked over her, making her blush._

She laughed and chided herself, shaking her head. Reality never matched up to books, but sometimes it held its own charms.

 

She went over to the tree a few more times over the next few days, and each time he’d straighten up when he saw her come near, ask her how she was doing. She’d offer a kind word that was no closer to filling his belly than anything else, but he seemed to soak it up, like he was saving each word away. “How are you holding up?” she asked, one day, after she’d set down a bag of feed near the wagon, and was passing back to her tent.

“'Bout as well as can be, considering,” he said.

A kind of deeper guilt gnawed away at her as the days dragged on with no change in his situation. She knew she shouldn’t feed him. She felt like it would create a bond between them she wasn’t sure she wanted, and was sure she didn’t need. 

All the same, she was tired of doing what the others in camp said. Being in camp, and right across from Dutch’s tent, gave her endless time to listen to him pontificate on the nature of freedom and America, and though she had thought he was brilliant when she first met him—a true visionary—she’d had too much time to ponder him at rest, too much time to watch him lounging about his fine tent—thinking, and holding forth—while other folks worked, and other folks in his service died, to have that same starry-eyed wonder towards him she had felt when she’d first arrived.

So maybe that was why she’d slipped the can of peaches into her skirts.

Or maybe it was just the same impulse that’d led her to being a thief in the first place—that thrill of getting away with something, of carrying out a mission in plain sight of others and not being caught.

Or maybe she was just too damn soft-hearted for her own good.

Whatever the reason, she felt the weight of the peaches as she went about her day. After night fell, and everyone had either retired to bed or gathered around the campfire, she went to work on cleaning some dishes. She could feel Kieran's eyes on him as she worked. Eventually, she shook the water from her hands and drew the can out, along with a can opener, and took off the lid slowly. To anyone passing, she’d just look like she was helping herself to a late night snack.

Then, waiting for the last stragglers by the fire to launch into a final sing-along, and checking carefully to make sure no one was watching her, she hid the can in the folds of her skirt, and slipped over to Kieran.

 His head was up, eyes watching her carefully with that same desperate hope she’d come to know so well.

“You’re not going to say a word, are you?” she asked.

“No, miss. I’m real good at keeping secrets,” Hearing that gratitude, that hope in his voice, she thought that that imaginary haughty prisoner with roguish good looks could take a flying leap. She was suddenly very satisfied with Kieran, and nothing else.

“That’s what’s got you into this mess, isn’t it?”

He laughed, raggedly. She wasn't sure she'd ever heard that before, and she liked hearing it. "I guess," he said.

She held the can up to his mouth, canned peaches, sweet and syrupy, and he swallowed it down, throat bobbing with each swallow.

“Slow down, or you’ll choke.”

 He made a perfunctory effort to slow down, but he didn’t much manage, just sucked them all down and didn’t stop until he was done, until he’d licked every last drop of syrup out of the can.

 “Thank you,” he whispered.  He looked at her, shyly. "Why?"

She shot a glance in the direction of Dutch’s tent. “Because I think holding you like this is stupid, and I’m getting tired of blindly taking orders from a man who’s never even seen the inside of a washbucket in his life.”

Kieran seemed puzzled by what that had to do anything, but he was agreeable. “If I ever get off this tree, I’ll do all the chores anyone asks.”

He was still a little bit breathless, and licking his lips desperately, like if he ran his tongue over his lips enough, he’d find more sugar hidden there. She nudged him. “You should talk. I don’t want to watch them starving you forever. You’ll be no good at chores then.”

His face fell. “I can’t talk. Colm’ll kill me if I talk.”

“Not if you're with us.” 

He looked away. “You don’t know him. Not like I do.”

She looked at him and realized there was some kind of steel in him underneath, a core of certainty that even a kind gesture wouldn’t get at. “Don’t get yourself killed like this because you’re afraid of getting killed like that, all right?” And she put a hand on his cheek. He leaned into it, his mouth opening slightly, like it was the finest thing he’d felt in days. 

She felt another blush heating her face. “We’re friends now, aren’t we? So talk to Dutch. Tell him what he wants to hear. He’s good at protecting folks who’re loyal to him.” _Except for Davey, and Mac, and Jenny,_ a voice in her head whispered.

He seemed to catch the look in her eye, and frowned. “I’ll think about it,” he said. “I can’t thank you enough. You’re a real good person.”

She smiled at him, a bit sadly. Feeling reluctant about slipping away. She was fairly certain a heroine in a book would have done more, but the sun was starting to come up, and she could hear the first sound of sleeping bodies stirring around camp. Messy and confusing, that's what real life was. 

_He was strong in resolve, and proud, but there was something more there too, this man who should have been her sworn enemy. Under that dark coat and dark hair beat a kind heart. The others might not have seen it, but she did._

She shook her head. She was a fool, that much was certain. A fool, but a good thief. She still had that.

 

 

* * *

 

 

There was one other thing of note that happened to Kieran before he finally got off the tree at Horseshoe Overlook. 

Through it all, his stomach was a raw, bottomless pit that never let up on aching for even a moment. He had passed the point of mere hunger and slipped into a state of dizzy sluggishness, his head not working so well. When he still could think straight, he thought a hundred times a day about giving in. But he felt with a bone deep certainty that if he broke, Colm O'Driscoll would find out, and would do a whole lot worse than starve him. So he bided his time, which wasn’t easy when he was beginning to think he really might die out here on this tree. Still, Colm O'Driscoll knew how to instill fear in his men, and in Kieran, fear ran even deeper than hunger.

 He woke up one night from the half-daze he’d slipped into to a comforting and familiar touch against his face. He leaned into it, imagining a warm smile. When he realized it was just a horse, he jerked away, embarrassed. One of the horses in camp must have got loose and come over to him to bother him for treats. If they hadn’t learned by now he didn’t have anything for them, they were hopeless.

His eyes focused slowly, and then he started up so fast his hands jerked against the ropes. “Branwen?”

Soft horsey lips nuzzled against his forehead, like she was checking his head for injury. “Is that really you?” Kieran whispered, his heart beating fast.

Branwen just tossed her head impatiently and stomped her feet. His dry, bloodied lips cracked into a smile. “How’d you find me? We ain't even in the same state as the last time you saw me.”

Branwen just nudged his shoulder with her nose. Kieran sighed wistfully and leaned into the touch. Even brushed his cheek against that velvety soft nose, not minding that his beard came away slightly damp.

“I don’t deserve a horse as good as you.”

He heard heavy feet stomping towards him, and he stiffened, instinctively flattening himself up against the tree. Branwen looked up, shifting her hind legs skittishly.

“Who's there?” said a gruff voice. Stomping toward him, footsteps coming to a stop a few feet away. His voice changed when he saw the unfamiliar horse. “Woah, there. Let me get a look at you.”

Kieran felt his breath go out of his chest. It was the Van der Linde’s enforcer, the one who had captured him in the first place. Arthur. Arthur came and went from the camp, always bringing in meat and skinned animal carcasses, stopping for a bowl of stew that he’d sometimes eat standing in front of Kieran’s tree, looking up from time to time and asking Kieran if he had anything to say. The man didn’t otherwise trouble himself with him. 

Now he was examining the horse with something like curiosity, and a hand went out to pat her neck. “Where’d you come from, girl?”

 “She’s mine, Mr. Morgan.”

Arthur started, turned. None of that softness in his voice could be found on his face. “Yours? There ain’t nothing in this camp that’s yours, except that secret you’re gonna give up if you know what’s good for you.”

Kieran cringed back against the tree. “Please. I just mean it’s my horse. The one I was riding when you caught me. The same?” he offered, nervous, like Arthur needed the concept broken down for him.

Arthur turned and stared at the horse, looking like he was trying to remember that moment. For a minute, Kieran was afraid he wouldn’t remember—it had been a moment shot through in lightning in Kieran’s mind, the moment his life with the O'Driscolls had ended and his life had descended into a new kind of hell. For Arthur, though, he guessed, Kieran was just one more manner of prey he’d dragged back to camp, not too much more interesting than the dead pronghorn he’d dropped off on Pearson’s chopping block yesterday. But Arthur kept looking hard over the horse, and his eyes cleared for a minute. “Yeah, I remember thinking it was funny, little no-name stooge like you riding a flaxen roan. Well I’ll be damned, that is your horse. What are you doing here, girl?”

Arthur reached out to touch her, to lead her, and Kieran had a moment of realization of the power that had just been handed to Arthur. Kieran would bear his own slow starvation, but he felt with an unpleasant stab that if they did the same to Branwen, if they did anything to hurt her to get at Kieran, he'd break in an instant. Arthur knew she was his, and could probably guess Kieran cared for her. It was the sort of thing Colm would try in a heartbeat, if it occurred to him anyone could care about a horse.

 “She didn’t mean any harm coming here. Please don’t hurt her—”

“I ain’t gonna hurt her,” Arthur snapped, sounding irritated and a bit offended. He looked at Branwen contemplatively as he stroked Branwen’s nose. 

“No, mister. I didn’t mean nothing. She’s just… she’s my friend.”

As if prompted, Branwen nuzzled up on Kieran’s neck and whickered softly. Arthur took that in and sighed, looked none too happy with himself. His fists curled for a minute, then unclenched.

“Goddammit.” He reached out to take Branwen’s bridle and patted her. “Come on. You can’t help who owns you.” And he pulled an apple out of his satchel and fed it to Branwen gently.

Kieran felt his stomach do a flip as he smelled the fresh smell of crisp apple as Branwen chewed. He was so desperately hungry, but at least Arthur was feeding Branwen. Arthur ignored him, and addressed Branwen.

“C’mere, girl. You set on following this idiot into our camp, you can, but you can’t stay _inside_ the camp, or Miss Grimshaw will have my head.”

Kieran let a deep breath out, slumping back against the tree.

“Go on, girl,” he whispered to Branwen. “You can follow him.”

Snorting in a perfunctory show of protest, Branwen followed along after Arthur as he led her over to the hitching post, where the other horses raised their heads with vague curiosity. Arthur patted her after hitching her to the post, and his hand lingered there for a moment. His hand came away from her coat with mud and dirt. He sighed and pulled out his brush, gave her a quick rubdown. Branwen snorted and tossed her head.

“Show off,” Kieran mock-scolded, just loud enough that Branwen could hear him.

Arthur gave the horse a pat as he walked back, the gentle, almost fond smile that had been playing around his face as he brushed her disappearing as he walked toward Kieran.

“That’s one loyal horse you got there, O'Driscoll.”

Kieran shrugged, or thought he did. His back and shoulders were so stiff and swollen he honestly wasn’t sure he could shrug anymore. “Yeah.”

Arthur frowned, not seeming to like the thought that he’d done something nice for an O'Driscoll, or at least for an O'Driscoll’s horse. “Almost as loyal as you are to Colm.”

He tugged helplessly against the ropes. “I told you, mister. I hate that bastard. But I can’t tell you what I don’t know.”

“You’re a stubborn little shit, you know that?” Arthur's fingers curled for a second, and he ran his hands through his hair. “I’ll see that your horse gets fed, though. It ain’t her fault she’s got an O'Driscoll for an owner.”

“Thanks, mister.”

 “I don’t need thanks,” Arthur snapped. “I need a location.”

Arthur never did feed him. Not that Kieran’d ever really expected him to. But he was true to his word with Branwen, feeding her himself when he was in camp, or asking Lenny or Hosea to do it when he was out. (Never Bill, he noticed, with some relief.)

It was enough to look over and see her there, standing among the other horses by the edge of the wood, grazing. Knowing she had found her way back to him.

 

 

After he got off the tree, after saving Arthur’s life at Six Point Cabin, Kieran drifted back into camp with John and Bill. From where Kieran had been sitting, riding behind John again, he could feel Bill's eyes burning holes in Kieran’s back the whole way. He was going to be one to avoid, as much now as when he'd been on the tree. Kieran slipped off the horse, and chanced a glance towards the tent where the girls slept, finally able to see the whole thing for the first time. He'd hoped Mary-Beth would be there to look up from her book curiously to see Kieran come back, untied and unguarded, from the trip, but she and some of the other girls were out with Hosea, chasing down some lead or another.

 John called out to Dutch. “It was a hideout of O'Driscolls. We killed 'em all, but Colm wasn’t there. This one saved Arthur’s life, so Arthur says he ain’t worth killing yet.”

Dutch searched his face, then nodded. “Put him to work then. If he wants to be fed, he can start earning his keep.”

After they got done threatening him with all the things they’d do to him if he crossed them, and Bill got done chasing him around with those goddamn gelding tongs, and Kieran got done hiding on the edge of camp waiting for Bill to drink himself into a stupor, Kieran approached the stew pot. It was beyond strange, to be able to see the camp from all sorts of different angles now, not just the one spot he'd been fixed to for three weeks.

 It was stranger still, being able to just walk right up to the stew pot, pick up a tin, and serve himself up a ladleful. He kept glancing around, afraid someone was going to walk up and knock the bowl out of his hand, but no one seemed to give a damn. He looked around. Folks were sitting together at a few of the tables scattered around, but the thought of trying to join any of them struck him as fairly absurd. He could just imagine the tongue-lashing he’d get if he sat down next to Mrs. Adler to eat.

He looked around at the camp and, not having a clear idea of where else to go, he walked back to his dead tree. He almost sat down against it, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to be that much of a sorry bastard. Instead he sat against a rock nearby—close enough that it still felt like familiar territory, without actually being the same spot.

He looked down at the stew and his mouth watered. The smell of it nearabouts made tears spring in his eyes all on its own, and he hunched over it like there were Van der Lindes lurking in the bushes just waiting to kick it out of his hands. The way the Van der Linde gang carried on, he knew they regarded the stew as flavorless, with meat the consistency of old boots, but it had smelled like heaven to him for weeks, and taking a spoonful of it now with his own hands was one of the most purely happy moments of his life. It was up there among the best—the first time someone’d taken him to bed, the first time he’d ridden across a meadow bareback, when he’d finally escaped the army, and Pearson’s stew full of mystery meat and no spices anyone could name. It was a pitifully short list, come to think of it. He needed a less pathetic life.

He supposed getting off that tree was a start. The first step to a better life. 

Kieran wanted to go get seconds more than anything, but he didn’t want to press his luck, and he knew they were stretched thin and getting back on their feet, so he forced himself up and over to the wash tub, to clean his plate. Pearson was there.

“That was good stew, mister, thank you.”

Pearson looked up, slightly red-eyed and red-nosed, looking for a minute like he genuinely couldn’t remember what to do in the face of a compliment to his cooking that seemed sincere. “You’re welcome. Happy to do it.”

 “Thank you,” he repeated, looking significantly at Pearson, wondering if he remembered. The baffled look on his face showed him that he definitely didn’t remember feeding him before, or telling him about shark attacks well into the early morning hours, which maybe was just as well. He guessed, apart from Mary-Beth, none of the people who had given him food while he was on the tree would remember it, or want to be reminded of it if they did. Still, he felt vaguely certain that the only reason he was still alive, after more than three weeks of hunger, was the meals the Van der Linde gang had slipped to him. He felt achingly grateful for that. “I’d be happy to help with the stew tomorrow, and going forward.”

“Sure, can always use the help. Thanks, Kieran.” Kieran. Not O'Driscoll.

He walked away, feeling hopeful. He had a task for the morning, and he had a hot meal in his belly.

Tomorrow, he’d get up early and start doing chores, start earning his keep. For tonight, though, he walked over to the edge of the overlook, and finally got a good look at the horseshoe bend of the creek curled below them, glistening like a ribbon in moonlight. He couldn’t believe he’d been sitting with his back to this view the whole time and never even known it.

Arthur walked up behind him. “Now that you’re staying, you can start feeding your own horse,” he said gruffly.

“Of course. Thanks—thanks for looking out for her.”

Arthur shrugged. “S'no problem. She’s a good girl.”

“Sure is.”

They stood for a moment side by side, and Kieran almost let himself believe they were sharing a companionable silence together.

“You steal her, or did the O'Driscolls steal her for you?”

“Neither,” he said, voice raised a little defensively. “I tamed her myself, back before I was riding with the O'Driscoll, when I was still with my old gang.”

“Your old—Jesus, how many gangs have you sold out, boy?”

“None! Well, I mean I guess Colm, today, but like I said, I hate him, and even him I only sold out when you guys pulled out the gelding tongs—” he snapped his mouth shut. Kieran had never seemed to know how to properly make a case for himself, but even he was quite sure this wasn’t the way to do it. Certainly not with Arthur.

 And indeed, Arthur was chuckling unpleasantly, shaking his head. “Real stand-up feller you are.”

“I didn’t sell out my old gang before the O'Driscolls. I would have never. I think I must have felt about them the way you feel about this gang.” He licked his lips. “They was all killed. And I couldn’t stop it.”

Arthur looked at him, still suspicious, but some spark of reluctant humanity flickered deep in his eyes, the same that’d stolen over him when he’d looked at Branwen. Then he reached down to pull out a cigarette. “Losing folks is tough.”

“Yeah. Maybe I’ll stick to horses from now on.”

"Probably a good idea. They'll find you more tolerable too.”

Watching Arthur smoke reminded him of something. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a cigarette. A cigarette he’d put into his pocket that day back at Ewing’s Basin, still dry, after all these weeks. He put it in his mouth, feeling almost lucky, then remembered that his matches were gone, along with everything else he’d once had.

He toyed with the unlit cigarette, and moved to put it away. Arthur looked at him hard. He lit his own cigarette, then shook the match out.

“You can go light that in the campfire, instead of just looking at it, O'Driscoll,” Arthur said.

Kieran sighed, nodded. Guess that was a clear enough sign that things hadn’t changed between them. Not really. Not even after he’d saved Arthur’s life. He walked away to go light his cigarette. He’d have to get matches from somewhere, cigarettes too. And a bed roll to sleep on. And clothes that didn’t make everyone in camp’s lip curl when they looked at him. He had no idea how he was going to get any of that, when he couldn’t even leave camp. He’d only had a few dollars to begin with, and Arthur had relieved him of that as soon as he’d captured him.

 “I’m not really an O'Driscoll,” he said again, after returning from lighting his cigarette at the cooking fire.

“Sure, O'Driscoll. Sure.”

At least Arthur seemed to like that he hadn’t asked for a light. That was something. Maybe, just maybe, even Arthur'd soften on him someday. If Sean MacGuire could have fed him stew while he was tied to that tree, he supposed there was no limit to the potential for kindness the gang had in them, under all their hostility to him. He had just to work hard, and show them he wasn't a traitor in their midst.

Arthur finished his cigarette and left, but Kieran stayed longer, watching the colors change as the sun set.  

He decided to allow himself to hope tonight that he could win them over, eventually. He decided he'd even get up the nerve to talk to Mary-Beth tomorrow, when she got back. He hoped she'd still like him. He sighed, and leaned against the rock to go to sleep, facing away from the camp. He felt at peace for the first time in a long time, feeling almost close to sated.


End file.
